Automatic Identification of Structural Process Weaknesses – Experiences with Semantic Business Process Modeling in the Financial Sector

Business process reengineering (BPR) has been a core research topic for at least the last twenty years. As banks have realized the need to look on their business in a process-oriented way, they have been engaged in numerous business process reengineering projects to make their organizations more efficient. However, the success of BPR projects in banks varies significantly and it remains a challenge to systematically discover weaknesses in business process landscapes. Based on the Semantic Business Process Modeling Language (SBPML) this paper introduces a new approach for pattern-based automatic process model analysis, with a focus on identifying structural process weaknesses such as organizational process fragmentation, possibly unnecessary process complexity or multiple resource usage or other process inefficiencies. Additionally, this approach also allows for a benchmarking of different process path alternatives in the same process or among different processes. In this article, this approach is applied and evaluated in the financial sector, but it can possibly also be used in other domains. It contributes to a more efficient and more effective identification of possible weaknesses in process models in comparison to today’s manual analysis of process models

Experimental Evaluation of a Process Benchmarking Tool in a Green Business Process Management Context

Using a combination of metamodels, ontologies, green performance indicators and metrics, we apply a novel approach in Semantic Business Process Benchmarking to the area of Green Business Process Management (Green BPM). Up to now, process benchmarking has mainly been a manual process; the approach described and empirically evaluated in this paper partially automates the time-consuming and costly process analyses while introducing more flexibility regarding varying terminology, level of abstraction and modeling notation. Also, overviews of literature relevant to the field of Green Semantic BPM and commonly applied metrics in a Green BPM context are given

BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL ANTI-PATTERNS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY AND TAXONOMY OF PUBLISHED WORK

Patterns have been proven to be useful for documenting reusable solutions to common problems. A recently published bibliography of business process model patterns shed light into the various types of patterns by providing a systematic categorization of these patterns. In this way, such classification improves the understanding of business process model patterns. Anti-patterns document a counterproductive solution to a commonly occurring problem. While a classification for the large body of literature on business process model patterns is available, a structured bibliography of anti-patterns is missing. Related work on anti-patterns discusses patterns for common modeling errors, problems in business process models as well as in the business processes. Modeling experts should be aware of all these types of anti-patterns. To fill this gap, this paper presents a bibliography of business process model anti-patterns and a taxonomy of anti-patterns that has been developed using an established approach for taxonomy development. Both are based on an literature review and are valuable for people during the design and analysis phases of business processes since knowledge about anti-patterns in business process models helps for increasing their quality. Our overview should also be useful for developers of modeling tools who wish to make the modeler aware of potential modeling problems

Eine empirische Studie zur strukturellen Komplexität konzeptioneller Modelle – Grundlegung eines effizienten Ansatzes zur strukturellen Modellanalyse

Für die Analyse konzeptioneller Informationsmodelle existiert eine Vielzahl von Verfahren, die für eine bestimmte Modellierungssprache oder Anwendungsdomäne entwickelt wurden und abgegrenzte Analysezwecke unterstützen. Häufig besteht eine Teilaufgabe der Analyseverfahren in der Identifikation struktureller Modellmuster. Für dieses als Subgraphisomorphie bekannte Problem existieren effiziente, allgemein anwendbare Algorithmen, die bestimmte topologische Eigenschaften der zugrundeliegenden Graphen voraussetzen. Dieser Beitrag präsentiert die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung von 3000 Informationsmodellen und demonstriert, dass die meisten dieser Modelle entsprechende Eigenschaften aufweisen. Er präsentiert eine empirische Studie für die Entwicklung einer allgemein anwendbaren Analysemethode, die in viele Spezialentwicklungen integriert werden kann

Eine empirische Studie zur strukturellen Komplexität konzeptioneller Modelle – Grundlegung eines effizienten Ansatzes zur strukturellen Modellanalyse

Für die Analyse konzeptioneller Informationsmodelle existiert eine Vielzahl von Verfahren, die für eine bestimmte Modellierungssprache oder Anwendungsdomäne entwickelt wurden und abgegrenzte Analysezwecke unterstützen. Häufig besteht eine Teilaufgabe der Analyseverfahren in der Identifikation struktureller Modellmuster. Für dieses als Subgraphisomorphie bekannte Problem existieren effiziente, allgemein anwendbare Algorithmen, die bestimmte topologische Eigenschaften der zugrundeliegenden Graphen voraussetzen. Dieser Beitrag präsentiert die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung von 3000 Informationsmodellen und demonstriert, dass die meisten dieser Modelle entsprechende Eigenschaften aufweisen. Er präsentiert eine empirische Studie für die Entwicklung einer allgemein anwendbaren Analysemethode, die in viele Spezialentwicklungen integriert werden kann

On the usage of theories in the field of Wirtschaftsinformatik : a quantitative literature analysis

The development of theories is a central goal of every scientific discipline. Hence, theory development is also of considerable importance to the field of Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI), which seeks to progress as a scientific discipline. WI is the discipline focussing on research and design of information systems conducted by the German-speaking community. WI has slightly different objectives, focusses on different methods and different desired results compared to the Anglo-American Information Systems (IS) research discipline. Although both disciplines deal with information systems as their main research object, Mertens et al. (2014) propose to consider both disciplines as halfsister disciplines (in German: Halbschwesterdisziplinen). Against the background of the growing importance of theory development in WI, a lot of WI research contributions use and reference existing theories and theoretical models for different purposes, e.g. to derive and test hypotheses or to justify design decisions in the context of information systems’ design and development. Often, these theories originate from related scientific disciplines like economics or psychology. However, as it is still not clear which theories are of particular importance to WI research, this report aims at presenting a detailed analysis of the current usage of theories in WI and addresses the following research questions: Which theories are used in WI research and where do they originate from? and How has the usage of theories developed over time? These questions were examined based on a systematic analysis of a broad amount of scientific literature. Thus, this report is supposed to make a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the theoretical foundations of WI. Our analysis shows that 1,160 WI articles from 2000 to 2011 do, in large part, reference the same theories as Anglo-American Information Systems (IS) research. These findings are discussed and implications are highlighted